First in the Nation: Wesleyan Students, Faculty, and Alumni Call for a Memorial Plaque for Animals Killed for Dining Hall Meals

For Immediate Release:
October 23, 2025

Contact:
Alex Payne 202-483-7382

As students return to campus following fall break, a coalition of Wesleyan University students, faculty, and alumni sent a letter today to university President Michael Roth, requesting the installation of a PETA-supported memorial plaque on the school’s Usdan University Center to commemorate the millions of chickens, cows, fish, pigs, and other living beings who have been killed and served as food in the campus dining hall. It is the first of its kind, and the coalition believes it will not only start a conversation about the value of not eating meat to animals, human health, and the environment, but also that the plaque will influence other schools to do the same.

The proposed plaque’s inscription emphasizes how other species feel love, joy, pain, and fear just as humans do, yet are raised on filthy, crowded factory farms, endure a petrifying journey to slaughter through all weather extremes, and are violently killed. PETA points out that the university’s dining hall can easily eliminate such cruelty from its menu, as it has already acknowledged the student body’s vegan food requests by offering a plethora of plant-powered options.

“There’s no undoing the agony and trauma endured by animals who were needlessly killed for food, but creating space for empathy could help students and faculty recognize the fact that all living, feeling beings deserve our care and respect,” says Professor Lori Gruen, who authored the letter alongside Wesleyan student Yoyo Watanabe. “The Wesleyan Animal Recognition Memorial is a prompt meant to inspire students to help make the world a more compassionate place by leaving animals off their plates.”

“Universities have renamed buildings and placed land acknowledgment plaques in recognition of past wrongs, yet grave injustices persist on campus so long as animals are not thought of as someones but as somethings to be served up in the dining hall,” says PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk. “Wesleyan has a chance to be on the right side of history by embracing this memorial’s compassionate message now, not 50 years from now.”

Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year, dramatically shrinks their food-related carbon footprint, and slashes their risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and obesity. PETA’s free vegan starter kit is filled with tips to help anyone looking to make the switch.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out thatEvery Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.